


Axis Mundi

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:45:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4503060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They die.</p>
<p>All men do, after all. But that is not the end; nowhere near it, in fact. It is the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Axis Mundi

**Author's Note:**

> Takes into account only up through Season 5, and the fact that Sam lost his soul in Season 6.
> 
> Unfinished - disjointed pieces that somehow manage to get the point across. Been lingering on my harddrive for years; cleaning out. Free to a good home.

They die.

All men do, after all. But that is not the end; nowhere near it, in fact. It is the _beginning._

* * *

 Sam wakes up and knows, immediately. He’s lying in bed with Jess, curled together in a nest of light blankets, the air conditioning humming low. Dim rays are limning the window with gold, and the sun is just breaking over the horizon. Color is returning to the world, Jess is warm in his arms, and their apartment is a quiet haven of normalcy. _Heaven_ , he thinks, and tucks her body closer to his.

* * *

Dean is sitting in his car, looking out at a road. _Axis Mundi_ , he remembers. It leads to the Garden. He’s in Heaven. He doesn’t have to look around him to know he’s alone. He pulls the Impala into a careful U-turn, and starts going the other way.

* * *

They stay in bed for an hour, just breathing. He can smell her hair - the clean scent of aloe, with a faint hint of strawberries underneath. Soft skin under his palms. Eventually Jess turns to face him, one hand coming up to cup his cheek. When their lips meet, Sam feels like he’s been waiting for this kiss for a lifetime.

* * *

The road doesn’t end. It just keeps curving, as Dean knows it will. Spiraling out, and in - but no matter which way he goes, it will always take him back to the Garden. The only choice he has is in the length of the journey. He stops the Impala, hours-days-years of driving later. Gets out, looks at the darkness all around. There are stars above, clearer and brighter than any he’s ever seen.

* * *

They make love, slow and gentle the first time, and again more playfully, with Jess laughing and gasping and clinging tightly to him. “I missed you,” she says as they catch their breaths, her slim fingers pushing his hair back from his face and away from his eyes.

“I missed you too,” is all he can think to say. He reaches out, and tucks a blonde curl behind one ear for her. They used to do that for each other, all the time.

She leans in, lips soft against his. “Did you have a good time?”

Sam tilts his head, looking a question at her.

“With your brother,” she clarifies.

“Oh.” Sam shakes his head ruefully, a wry smile on his lips. _A good time?_ Maybe, between the monsters and deals with demons, his brother going to hell and demon blood and the apocalypse, Lucifer and hell and losing his soul - maybe. Some of the times in between all of that were good. Maybe.

Jess strokes the side of his face, blue eyes memorizing him. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Me too.”

* * *

Dean leaves the Impala behind when the road loses its crisp clarity and the trees start to fuzz into nothing, taking off on foot. He doesn’t know how long he walks before breaking off into the underbrush at the side of the path. The Axis leads to the Garden, and he could be headed towards it or away for all he knows; there are no road signs in Heaven, no maps and no one to ask directions from. All he wants is to be a good distance from sight of the road, and from the Impala - though she’s probably been absorbed by the rest of Heaven now. He doesn’t want anyone to be able to find him, but all he hears are Zachariah’s words from the last time he tried this.

_“Running from angels. On foot. In Heaven.”_

Heaven, yes, but not _his_ Heaven. Not yet, at least.

After awhile he comes to a small clearing, nothing fancy. Just a bit of dry grass, and a smooth rock he can lean against. The edges of this place seem to melt off into the stars, and he thinks he might be far enough. Dean settles down against the rock.

Heaven. Reliving his greatest hits. Only he’s never had too many of those, and the last time he was here just about ruined the last of them. Everything that came after that visit was steeped in pain of one form or another, and he’d just as soon forget that life.

But there is one thing he’d like to try, and where he is now feels out of the way enough, secure enough, that he just might risk it. After all he’s stuck here for good now; he might as well make it bearable. 

* * *

Sam never thought that Heaven could be anything _new_ , not with what he’d learned the last time he remembered being here, but they get up that day and he knows it’s the weekend his normal life took a turn that led him literally to hell. And it’s over now, and Jess is alive, and he’s going to go to law school.

He guesses that Cas did manage to make some changes up here for the better, and then puts the thought out of his head entirely.

Sam finds the ring where he’d hidden it - wrapped in a handkerchief and taped to the underside of the bottom dresser drawer - and that night, he proposes. Jess laughs through her tears and pokes him for making her cry and whispers _yes_ against his lips.

* * *

Dean can recall, in bits and pieces, when he was small and had both his parents and the promise of a brother rather than the actuality. He was looked after, and warm and fed and safe, and he remembers very faintly the cusp of a dream, and being cradled gently, and being loved. It left him with a feeling of pure contentment that he clung to in the quiet year after his life went up in flames. He never knew if it was his mother or father that held him, and he’s grateful for that now.

Curled against a rock, as out of the way as he hopes he can get, Dean closes his eyes, fixes that moment in his mind, and _reaches._  

* * *

Castiel is a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. He has also been human for a short time. He knows the measure of seconds, hours, and days as well as the passing of millennium.

The irony then is that in fighting his war to bring Heaven back to some semblance of order, time gets away from him. He has no idea the Winchesters’ lives have been spent until Balthazar makes a comment one day, in passing.

By then, of course, it is far too late.

* * *

Sam has been married for three years when the doorbell rings.

He opens it, fully expecting to see Dean, or his parents, or Jess’ – they all visit often – and comes face-to-face with a trenchcoated angel instead. “Castiel?”

“Sam,” the angel sighs. “Where is your brother?”

“He visited the other day -”

“That was not your brother.”

“What?”

“Not his soul, anyway. It was an illusion, generated by your soul’s memory of him.”

* * *

“You were pretty easy to find, Sam.” Ash shrugs, laptop keys clicking away. “I already had tabs on your girlfriend, just so I’d know. But I haven’t heard a whisper of Dean. Can’t find him. You’re sure he’s here?”

Horror fills Sam. 

“Yes,” Castiel snaps. “They were both granted absolution and entrance to Heaven upon their deaths. He would not be anywhere else.”    

“Maybe he’s still alive?” Sam ventured. “I don’t remember, really, but maybe I died first?”

“No. He’s here.” 

“How do you know?” Sam demanded. “You wouldn’t be able to sense him, with the -”

“It has been one hundred and thirty-two years on Earth since the last time you prayed to me, Sam.”

His jaw snaps shut.

* * *

“Where would he be that no angels, and no other souls, have come into contact with him?”

* * *

Dean just remembers dying alone.

Sam had had a family, at the end, at least – he’d married a woman with two children of her own, too old to have anymore, and settled. He’d refused to pass on the Winchester curse and bloodline of Lucifer’s vessel, and Dean couldn’t help but think maybe he was right. He’d already lost his heart, though, and didn’t have anything left to share with anyone else. Not after what he’d tried with Lisa and Ben had fallen through so spectacularly.

Dean was never far away from Sam, but he couldn’t stay in the same town all the time.

He remembered lying on a bed in a motel just after leaving Sam’s house, and a pain in his chest that was horribly familiar. He’d known he was having a heart attack, even as it killed him. He’d wished he wasn’t alone, wasn’t lying on a stained, scratchy comforter in a pay-by-the-hour hole in the wall.

But he’d known that was exactly what would happen when he realized that he was in love with a self-proclaimed multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent. He’d been able to teach Castiel a lot of things, but the angel was light and sound and Grace, not human. He couldn’t teach Cas how to love Dean back.

* * *

“I thought you had a bond.”

“We do,” Castiel huffed. “But all I can sense is – warmth. Contentment. Nothing concrete, no hints as to where he might be or what other souls he might be interacting with.”

* * *

“What is that?”

It was dark, and blank – there were no stars, just a small expanse of the space _between_ the stars. Which wouldn’t have drawn much notice, except the blackness wasn’t part of the night sky; it started at the edge of the trees.

“This.” Castiel stepped to the side, maneuvering around it. “This should not be here.”

“Sounds like Dean to me,” Sam offered. He stretched out a hand, testing the blackness. It was warm, and relinquished his hand easily when he pulled back. “Come on.”

“I can’t.”

Sam paused, already halfway in the bubble. “Why not?”

“It’s covered with banishing sigils. If my Grace touches them, I don’t know what would happen.”

* * *

There was a little boy in front of him, pushing a firetruck. Back, and forth, and back again.

“Dean?”

No response – it was as if he wasn’t even there. The little boy continued to push the truck, and Sam wondered if maybe he had the wrong heaven. They’d wandered through dozens of children’s heavens once they realized Dean was hiding from them – all were very simplistic, moments of happiness frozen in time.

_But the banishing sigils._

And he recognized this little boy, from two faded pictures that had managed to survive  from the Winchester family’s first – and only – home. Blond hair, overlong, and green eyes; and young, so much younger than the image of Dean on a beige recliner, holding baby Sammy.

Sam crouched, focus entirely on the child. _He’s practically still a toddler._ “Is this your truck?”

Nothing; not even an acknowledgment.

“Dean?” Sam tried again.

Back, and forth. Back, and forth. Quiet and repetitive, a soothing motion and somewhat scarily sedate for such a small child. _Aren’t little kids supposed to be full of energy?_

Sam reached out a hand, resting it gently on the truck. Green eyes settled on his fingers as they halted the toy’s repetitive motion. Slowly, slowly, those eyes shifted to meet his own.

“Dean?” Sam breathed at the sight of that small, upturned face.

The world dissolved into blackness around him.

* * *

 Dean shrugged, very quietly, green eyes on Castiel. “He’s my soulmate. But I’m not his.”

 

 

 


End file.
